Day 19: 4D - The Fourth Dimension

Obligatory Caution: This blog posts contains metaphysics, physics, literature, and Christian thought all wrapped in one. Head explosion may occur.

OK so let's get it straight, "4D Days" is a pretty silly name for a blog. No one would actually call forty days "4D days" even those goofy internet speak people like me.

But there is one thing about "4D" which fascinates me, and that is the fourth dimension. Now I understand that the first three dimensions make plenty of sense: width, height, and length. But when we start adding dimensions, things get more complicated and it gets a lot harder to understand. I understand that most physicists and the like regard the fourth dimension as something separate from time, but it's a lot easier for me to just ignore these people and go with the popular conception. Not to mention, I read it in The Time Machine by H.G. Wells so it must be true, right?

So let's talk about time a little bit. I love talking about time because it is one of those things that we must live with day to day but can get so abstract and mind-blowing.

For starters, a lot of people don't realize how relative time is. When we consider the fact that time actually flows differently for two objects moving at different speeds, my head starts to swim a little bit. Think about the classic twin problem. We take two twins on earth and send one off in a rocket. Let's say this rocket moves at .99 times c where c is the speed of light. We'll send the twin off to the nearest start or something and then have the rocket return. When it returns, the twin on the rocket and the twin on earth will actually be a different age! I'll leave it at that abstraction. If your interested in relativity and such, feel free to google it. I did a search myself after describing that and found this wikipedia article on the twin problem called "The Twin Paradox." Go check it out.

Now let us add God into the picture. He is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. He created time. So where does God fit in with all this stuff?

Well if God created time, then he is above and beyond the concept of time. He does not experience time as we do, though he obviously chooses to act inside of time from our biblical examples.

This is one of the reasons why I think the whole "predestination vs. freewill" arguments tend to be pretty useless. If you add in the fact that God is above and beyond time, then you might see the truth in both sides. Predestined? Sure, God sees all moments of time at once. Freewill? Of course, God created us to have the capability to decide and we live moment to moment, unlike God.

Our fourth dimensional mind problems also speak to the magnitude of God's power. What an unfathomable being to have created the very idea of living one moment after another!

Of course, we are more or less stuck in what I call "domino mode." We experience life one moment after another at a more or less linear speed, one after another. This is analogous to a series of dominoes, where each moment of our lives is the next domino in the sequence. We can do nothing to stop the dominoes, the first was pushed at our conception, and the last will fall at our death. The universe too has its own domino chain which was pushed at the moment of creation.

When we remember our God is above the whole domino chain, sees all, and can manipulate and color each domino how he wishes, what an encouraging thought we have! This idea has a lot of power to shape the way we view our struggles and triumphs, our highs and lows, our whole lives! With this amazing, unfathomable God at our side, using us for his purposes, how loved we must be!

Hope that didn't break your brain too much. I love to think on and speculate the physical and theological ramifications of time. And we haven't even moved into the higher dimensions yet =)

See ya tomorrow.